sometimes i think about how jon canonically had issues with wandering/elopement as a kid and slightly question how accidental the autism coding really was
Let’s be real. Jon could’ve NOT performed the surgery he did on Melanie and let her choose to not have the bullet removed and once she was past the point of no return everyone would’ve blamed him for any blood on her hands. Tell me I’m wrong. CAUSE YOU CAN’T. Jon could’ve made all the ‘morally correct’ choices and they STILL would’ve treated him like scum. Hell, I bet if he hadn’t been consigned to the Eye and wasn’t beholden to the Beholding, they would’ve blamed him for everything anyway. Talk about ASKED FOR IT, he could’ve been a gray rock and everyone would’ve taken turns at him with a chisel.
Let’s be real. Jon could’ve NOT performed the surgery he did on Melanie and let her choose to not have the bullet removed and once she was past the point of no return everyone would’ve blamed him for any blood on her hands. Tell me I’m wrong. CAUSE YOU CAN’T. Jon could’ve made all the ‘morally correct’ choices and they STILL would’ve treated him like scum. Hell, I bet if he hadn’t been consigned to the Eye and wasn’t beholden to the Beholding, they would’ve blamed him for everything anyway. Talk about ASKED FOR IT, he could’ve been a gray rock and everyone would’ve taken turns at him with a chisel.
Literally. That’s my biggest frustration of the series. But that’s the point I think. Everyone blames Jon for their situation because he was their point of contact into the crazy but he was as clueless and stuck as the rest of them. But that’s more realistic and flawed than everyone being more reasonable and talking it out. Doesn’t make it any less maddening.
He wasn’t their ‘point of contact’ tho? That’s what trips me up every time people try and tout that as a reason. All of them, outside of Martin, had experiences with the entities that had NOTHING TO DO WITH JON AT ALL. He wasn’t some kind of bridge and if they hadn’t met him they would’ve been fine. Basira being sectioned was WHY she was even there to begin with, Melanie gave THREE FUCKING STATEMENTS or tried to, Sasha worked in artifact storage before working with him in research before being brought into the archives, Tim joined cause of Danny which was years before he met Jon, and the same with Georgie and the dead woman who was also years before she met him. He didn’t bring it into their lives, it was already THERE.
Just a psa for fic writers who use the “trauma bond” tag, please make sure you’re using it correctly. A trauma bond is not two people who experience similar trauma and bond over it. It’s a carefully curated, manipulative bond between abuser and victim to keep the victim coming back because of the addictive highs and lows that come with abuse.
If you want to tag two characters bonding over shared trauma, a good substitute tag would be “bonding over shared trauma.” Trauma bonding is, by definition, an abusive relationship and may steer people who have experienced it away from your fic. Please spread the word and happy writing!
Feel like this is relevant again, so just gonna leave this here for anyone who needs it (been seeing this term used incorrectly a lot lately).
Yes! “Trauma bonding” and “bonding through trauma” are two different things!
Finally got around to listening to the ‘training’ tape that came with the TMA TTRPG and Jon literally just sounds like Jonah thanks to the actual audio distortion of it being a fucking cassette tape and I would be angrier if it weren’t so fucking exhausted. I understand they had to go back to the facade Jon was putting on in season one but Jesus Christ. My only consolation is that it’s not canon in any sense of the word.
I hate fandom in-jokes and I hate critical analysis echo chambers and I hate homogenized fandomization of characters I hate it fandom is a mistake because if you deviate even an inch from the norm you’re wrong.
its fascinating when shows go “this character does not have sex” and you can just watch the fans minds just start going “well he doesnt have sex, therefore hes asexual, and as we all know, asexuality is a spectrum, and some asexuals actualy do have sex, and therefore he is probably having tons of crazy sex literaly every time he isnt on screen”
The Fears are parasites. The Fears… are parasites.
The Fears are parasites.
Smirke’s 14, in the Magnus Archives, are parasites. They are parasitic in nature and action. They’re parasites.
The Fears. Are parasites.
…
…
…
Any questions?
Oh yeeaahh.. this is why it pisses me off when fans assign the fears to themselves based off of which “aesthetic” their appearance aligns with the most. Like I know you’re having fun but could you stop playing with your dollies for a moment and put on your thinking cap. The whole point is that You Would Not Like It. The fear is not there to serve you as a silly wacky superpower you are there to feed it
YOU ARE THERE. TO FEED IT.
It takes over every aspect of you. It emphasizes your worse impulses, and erases your free will. You believe you are doing what you want, you believe your actions are fully your own, but you are only wanting to do those things in service to it to FEED IT. Because you and it are so intrinsically tied, you may as well be one being.
The part of you that is yourself, the part of you that likes it, is only there to add a layer of desperation to that feeding. Doing what it wants is a compulsion based on an obsession. You could potentially stop. And maybe it won’t kill you. Maybe it will. Regardless, you will wish you were dead by the end of it.
Which is exactly what it wants. So it can propagate.
I came here to ask you to not call people degenerates but then I read your posts about jon's lack of autonomy and how his fate was set from the beginning and I MAY be crying a little. I haven't even been into tma for literal years agh
Jon having no autonomy despite everyone inside and outside the podcast saying he does drives me up the wall and I have to periodically remind people that Jon was groomed from childhood constantly lest I perish.
almost forgot about how Jon wanting to not die at barely 30 years old and choosing to live through the Eye firmly aligned him with the villains of the podcast, and more specifically Jonah Magnus who wanted to live forever. that the narrative of the podcast states time and time again that Jon should’ve let himself die at the end of season three because it was the morally correct choice that would’ve saved countless people from suffering. that his suicidal ideation was too little too late and that he fucked up by not staying dead.
silly me.
Sorry, maybe it’s just me, but I thought the point of the final few episodes was that there was no morally correct choice? It was either keep things as they are (bad) keep things as they are but eventually get slightly less bad (still bad though because it would wipe out the earth) or send the fears to other universes where another 7-8 billion people would start suffering (also bad)
This isn’t about the morality of the final decision. This is about the morality of Jon being alive AT ALL post season three. And it is fact that if Jon died then the ritual wouldn’t have been completed. If Jon died then there would’ve been no apocalypse. Meaning, his being alive caused the entire planet to suffer. And as causing suffering is morally bad, we can extrapolate that his being alive post season three is morally bad.
almost forgot about how Jon wanting to not die at barely 30 years old and choosing to live through the Eye firmly aligned him with the villains of the podcast, and more specifically Jonah Magnus who wanted to live forever. that the narrative of the podcast states time and time again that Jon should’ve let himself die at the end of season three because it was the morally correct choice that would’ve saved countless people from suffering. that his suicidal ideation was too little too late and that he fucked up by not staying dead.
silly me.
Sorry, maybe it’s just me, but I thought the point of the final few episodes was that there was no morally correct choice? It was either keep things as they are (bad) keep things as they are but eventually get slightly less bad (still bad though because it would wipe out the earth) or send the fears to other universes where another 7-8 billion people would start suffering (also bad)
This isn’t about the morality of the final decision. This is about the morality of Jon being alive AT ALL post season three. And it is fact that if Jon died then the ritual wouldn’t have been completed. If Jon died then there would’ve been no apocalypse. Meaning, his being alive caused the entire planet to suffer. And as causing suffering is morally bad, we can extrapolate that his being alive post season three is morally bad.
Hope this helps.
Well yes, that does make sense, i didn’t see that it was about season 3. That being said, I still don’t think it’s fair because that can really only be said with the benefit of hindsight
That is true. However. Without hindsight, it was still a decision of: die or become a monster. And monsters are morally bad as, again, they cause suffering. His being alive was always predicated on the idea of him being used to cause suffering. Therefore. He should have stayed dead. And choosing to not stay dead. Means he was morally wrong. Evil. And a monster.
Sorry for pointing out how the podcast explicitly states that Jon should’ve stayed dead and was evil for not staying dead or at the very least commit suicide so as to not continue to cause other suffering. It will happen again and again and again and again.
This is just for posterity, but I’m predicting that the big bad final showdown in The Magnus Protocol, if there is one, is gonna be against Jon. Sorry. ~The Archivist~
Time Travel AU where Jon doesn’t try to make amends with people while attempting to circumvent the apocalypse. Where instead he loses the last drop of hope he had and changes exactly nothing… kind of. Where he doesn’t bother assigning them research because it was pointless to begin with. Where doing this doesn’t stop him from being marked, because he already was, but Jonah doesn’t fully understand that. Where his apathy at everything and everyone, especially in regard to the archives, make the OG assistants concerned. Where, when he’s confronted by this, he blows smoke in their faces and tells them to bring it up with ‘Elias’. Where he and Jonah play chicken about their knowing the truth. Where Jonah can’t even gloat at having a ‘willing participant’, because it was always about breaking and subjugating Jon to his will. Where Jon still reads the true statements because he’s still dependent on them and they’re the only thing that makes him feel anything anymore. Where, as things get closer and closer to the archives, because Jonah has to start forcing the marks, the OG assistants confront Jon again. Where Jon is finally forced to admit that, to him, they’re ALL already walking corpses. Even him. Where he lays everything out before them, including how to quit, and tells them they can do whatever the fuck they want with the information. Where the smell of smoke clings to him from cigarette after cigarette after cigarette. Where they do what they do and abandon him. Where, when it all comes to the end, he dances every step he’s told and releases the fears like the good puppet he is. And the cycle starts anew.
The text of this podcast, by having this as a character point, is explicitly stating that: if you were traumatized at a young age, you better develop healthy coping skills and not maladaptive ones, despite the possibility of an unstable youth or other underlying mental disorders making this difficult in adulthood, least you be rightfully ostracized and dehumanized by your peers for being unable to make the right choices.
You know, as much as I find the “Jon puts his whole heart into the statement and then calls it fake” posts funny. I feel like everyone forgets that there are, in fact, a lot of fake statements.
When Martin yells at Jon for “Pushing the sceptic thing so hard” we’re inclined to agree with him, but that’s only because we only hear the real statements. Martin would likely be hearing Jon record all the statements, and for most of them, Jon’s gonna be right, cause they are fake.
“I still think most of the statements down here aren’t real. Of the hundreds I’ve recorded, we’ve had maybe… thirty, forty that are… that go on tape. Now, those, I believe, at least for the most part.”
Hundreds. Jon has recorded hundreds of statements between, at least, January 13th (Naomi Herne’s statement) to July 29th (the infestation) and only 38 of them were real. (33, that were written statements already in the archives)